Pies and Pans

Frustration at the grocery store, where it rapidly became clear that such a thing as a pie pan just does not really exist in Germany.

As it happens, I already owned one of these odd-looking pans:

...and in the supermarket the other day, I finally figured out why it has that odd depression around the edge: It's intended for baking a base layer of cake that's then flipped over and covered in fruit to create the kind of fruit tart that's much beloved of Germans but, er, not very beloved of me.

The depression around the edge creates a nice edge ridge when flipped over to make a fruit tart, but for me it's only ever been an annoyance when trying to do what seems to me the sensible thing when in possession of fruit, a pan and an oven, i.e. bake a pie.

Solution? Try to fill the darn thing in. With tinfoil:

Creatively cobbled-together result: one pie in a converted fruit-tart-cake-base pan, one in a rectangular pan probably meant for casseroles or some such. Why no pie pans, Germany? Why?

The pie came out quite well, but in the final reckoning, I don't recommend the tinfoil trick after all – it got all commingled with the juices from the apples and baked into a solid, sticky mess that had to soak overnight before I could pry it back out of the pan. Next time, back to the drawing board on that particular point.

In any case, apple pie!

And friends gathered for a fall-themed dish-to-pass, with lots of dishes heavy on the pumpkins and the apples, all delicious:

(A tip of the hat to Anna and Ian, if you're reading this – I finally actually used your brilliant pie recipe after all these years! Clearly I don't make pie often enough.)